1
00:00:06,040 --> 00:00:10,200
Speaker 1: Why are neutrons so complicated? And why is white chocolate

2
00:00:10,440 --> 00:00:11,640
Speaker 1: not more widely hated?

3
00:00:11,840 --> 00:00:15,200
Speaker 2: Are the bananas we eat all the same? Can we

4
00:00:15,280 --> 00:00:16,800
Speaker 2: save them from that fungal strain?

5
00:00:17,200 --> 00:00:20,880
Speaker 1: Is Jupiter really only made of gas? It's definitely got

6
00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:21,680
Speaker 1: a lot of.

7
00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:27,360
Speaker 2: Mess biology, physics, archaeology, forestry. Thanks for not asking about chemistry.

8
00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:31,440
Speaker 1: What diseases do you get from your cat? Well, we'll

9
00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:33,159
Speaker 1: find the answers to all of that.

10
00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:36,440
Speaker 2: Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's

11
00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:37,600
Speaker 2: answers will make it right.

12
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:41,479
Speaker 1: Welcome to another Listener Questions episode on Daniel and Kelly's

13
00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:43,120
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

14
00:00:56,880 --> 00:00:58,240
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Kelly Waitersmith.

15
00:00:58,280 --> 00:01:01,680
Speaker 1: I study parasites and s and you are surprisingly good

16
00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:02,520
Speaker 1: at limericks.

17
00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:04,959
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know about that. I gave a talk

18
00:01:05,080 --> 00:01:08,720
Speaker 2: in Kentucky and a woman who is a poet was invited,

19
00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:12,840
Speaker 2: and she gave a poem about our book, and she

20
00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:16,960
Speaker 2: encouraged me to be bolder about poetry and not so

21
00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:22,120
Speaker 2: self conscious. And I know it's not good my rhymes,

22
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:24,160
Speaker 2: but I have so much fun, and I'm like, that's

23
00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:26,880
Speaker 2: kind of the point for me. For me, that's the point.

24
00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:30,119
Speaker 1: Well, I'm Daniel I'm a particle physicist. I don't pretend

25
00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:32,600
Speaker 1: to be a poet, but I think the universe is

26
00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:33,680
Speaker 1: kind of poetic.

27
00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:36,400
Speaker 2: Ah See, I think you're a poet in your own

28
00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:38,760
Speaker 2: way because you say very poetic things.

29
00:01:39,720 --> 00:01:42,399
Speaker 1: Well, if being corny and curious about the universe counts

30
00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:45,040
Speaker 1: as being poetic, then put me on that list.

31
00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:49,760
Speaker 2: It's a dad kind of poetry.

32
00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,400
Speaker 1: Dad poetry. Oh my gosh, science dad poetry. That is

33
00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:56,000
Speaker 1: a new genre we are pioneering here, science parent poetry. Really.

34
00:01:56,200 --> 00:01:59,720
Speaker 2: Yes, Well, you might ask yourself why would Kelly make

35
00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:03,520
Speaker 2: her poems public. I don't really know. I have a

36
00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:06,400
Speaker 2: confidence beyond what I ought to. But you know, there

37
00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:09,160
Speaker 2: are other questions out there, and our listeners have loads

38
00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:10,000
Speaker 2: of them.

39
00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:13,880
Speaker 1: Questions deeper than Kelly's ability to rhyme. We love hearing

40
00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:16,840
Speaker 1: your questions about the universe. How did it begin? How

41
00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:18,560
Speaker 1: is it going to end? What does it all mean?

42
00:02:18,680 --> 00:02:21,839
Speaker 1: How does it come together to explain everything we are

43
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:24,960
Speaker 1: and everything we eat and all the poems we listen to.

44
00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:27,520
Speaker 1: If you have questions about the nature of the universe

45
00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:29,920
Speaker 1: and you can't find answers, you've been googling, you've been

46
00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:34,240
Speaker 1: asking your neighbors, you don't know any physicists or parasitologists yourself.

47
00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:38,560
Speaker 1: Please write into us to questions at Danielankelly dot org.

48
00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:41,200
Speaker 1: We love, love, love to hear from you, and you

49
00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:42,919
Speaker 1: will definitely hear from us.

50
00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:45,840
Speaker 2: And everybody should have a parasitologist and a physicist in

51
00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:47,400
Speaker 2: their lives, and we are here for you.

52
00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:51,080
Speaker 1: That's right. We are feeling that whole you didn't know

53
00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:54,240
Speaker 1: you had in your life exactly. And so today we

54
00:02:54,280 --> 00:02:58,240
Speaker 1: have a bunch of really fun questions about neutrons, about bananas,

55
00:02:58,280 --> 00:03:01,120
Speaker 1: and about Jupiter, and there's a theme that's going to

56
00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:04,079
Speaker 1: tie them all together. We'll reveal it at the end.

57
00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:06,399
Speaker 2: Oh, Daniel's going to be revealing this to Kelly too,

58
00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:09,200
Speaker 2: because I didn't see a theme well, I was reading

59
00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:11,440
Speaker 2: our outline. Can't wait to find out.

60
00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:13,920
Speaker 1: This first question is from Scott Lewis, who thought that

61
00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:17,000
Speaker 1: neutrons also needed some Daniel and Kelly love after hearing

62
00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:18,880
Speaker 1: our episode about protons.

63
00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:21,840
Speaker 3: Hi, Kelly and Daniel. There have been a number of

64
00:03:21,919 --> 00:03:26,440
Speaker 3: articles lately discussing the internal complexity of the proton and

65
00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:30,040
Speaker 3: everything we are learning about it. One article went so

66
00:03:30,120 --> 00:03:33,440
Speaker 3: far as to describe it as the most complicated thing

67
00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:38,160
Speaker 3: you can possibly imagine. I've read of unusual tetri quark

68
00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:42,720
Speaker 3: configurations and other weird things that show up in the

69
00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,840
Speaker 3: colliders from time to time. Is the internal structure of

70
00:03:46,880 --> 00:03:50,920
Speaker 3: a neutron similarly complex? Do we know less about the

71
00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:54,000
Speaker 3: guts of a neutron? And if so, is there a

72
00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:58,360
Speaker 3: reason why they are perhaps more difficult to study? Thank

73
00:03:58,400 --> 00:04:01,839
Speaker 3: you for everything you guys do great job on the program.

74
00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:04,880
Speaker 2: This is a great question. And you know, Daniel, whenever

75
00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:07,320
Speaker 2: I hear about neutrons, I think about one of those

76
00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:10,520
Speaker 2: disaster movies with John Cusack in it, where the world

77
00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:15,520
Speaker 2: was like falling apart because the neutrons had mutated. Yeah,

78
00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:19,240
Speaker 2: I know, I almost walked out of that movie. I

79
00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:21,600
Speaker 2: loved John Cusack as a child of the eighties.

80
00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:23,880
Speaker 1: You know, you can say anything, but don't say anything

81
00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:25,160
Speaker 1: about neutrons mutating.

82
00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:29,240
Speaker 2: That's right, That's a line for me, a line. But

83
00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:31,360
Speaker 2: I gotta say, I don't really understand neutrons very well.

84
00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:34,240
Speaker 2: So let's start at the beginning. What are neutrons? And

85
00:04:34,279 --> 00:04:36,800
Speaker 2: hopefully by the end I'll be convinced that they won't

86
00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:38,320
Speaker 2: mutate and I don't have to worry about the world

87
00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:38,960
Speaker 2: being destroyed.

88
00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:41,800
Speaker 1: Well, I agree with Scott. Neutrons are just as fascinating,

89
00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:44,240
Speaker 1: if not more so, than protons, and they don't get

90
00:04:44,279 --> 00:04:46,720
Speaker 1: as much attention because we don't think of them as

91
00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:49,800
Speaker 1: the building blocks of matter, but they really are. They're essential.

92
00:04:49,839 --> 00:04:52,640
Speaker 1: Without neutrons, we wouldn't have big, complicated atoms that you

93
00:04:52,680 --> 00:04:56,880
Speaker 1: need for biology and chemistry and bananas for example. But

94
00:04:56,960 --> 00:04:59,920
Speaker 1: protons and neutrons are very closely related. Both of them

95
00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:03,480
Speaker 1: are made of the same fundamental objects, just different amounts

96
00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:07,120
Speaker 1: of them. So a proton is made of two upcorks

97
00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:09,880
Speaker 1: and a down cork, and so the upcork is charged

98
00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:12,520
Speaker 1: two thirds and then down cork is charged minus one third.

99
00:05:12,760 --> 00:05:15,200
Speaker 1: So you add two upquarks and a down cork you

100
00:05:15,279 --> 00:05:17,719
Speaker 1: get a total charge of one. That's the proton. If

101
00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:20,560
Speaker 1: you switch one of those upcorks for a down cork,

102
00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:23,599
Speaker 1: and they have one upcork with charge two thirds and

103
00:05:23,680 --> 00:05:26,919
Speaker 1: two down corks with charge minus one third each, you

104
00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:31,040
Speaker 1: get a neutron because it's neutral as zero electric charge.

105
00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:33,800
Speaker 1: So two downs and an up neutron, two ups and

106
00:05:33,839 --> 00:05:34,440
Speaker 1: a down.

107
00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:37,280
Speaker 2: Proton got it. So usually on this show you hear

108
00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:40,440
Speaker 2: me complain about how bad physicists are at naming things

109
00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:44,080
Speaker 2: because we are exactly Yeah, I'm making an accurate observation,

110
00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:47,520
Speaker 2: but I love that y'all have named the thing that

111
00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:51,120
Speaker 2: holds it all together gluons, and I'm assuming that's because

112
00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:52,479
Speaker 2: it sounds like glue, right.

113
00:05:53,520 --> 00:05:56,160
Speaker 1: Well, the gluons aren't very sticky. Yes, yeah, they do

114
00:05:56,279 --> 00:05:59,880
Speaker 1: hold these things together. And so upquarks and down quarks

115
00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:03,200
Speaker 1: are super fascinating because they are similar to other particles

116
00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:06,159
Speaker 1: we know, like electrons, but they also feel another force,

117
00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:09,520
Speaker 1: the strong nuclear force, So they are charged. We talked

118
00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:12,000
Speaker 1: about them having two thirds or negative one third charge,

119
00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:15,280
Speaker 1: so they feel electromagnetism. They can shoot off photons, they

120
00:06:15,279 --> 00:06:18,279
Speaker 1: feel electric fields, but there's another field in the universe

121
00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:21,039
Speaker 1: that they feel that electrons ignore, and that's the color

122
00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:25,839
Speaker 1: field of the strong nuclear force and vibrations of that field.

123
00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:30,000
Speaker 1: They're actually eight different ones are called gluons, and so

124
00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:33,080
Speaker 1: gluons are the mediator of the strong force, the way

125
00:06:33,120 --> 00:06:36,599
Speaker 1: photons are the mediator of the electromagnetic force. It's just

126
00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:39,800
Speaker 1: one of the things the universe can do. And electrons

127
00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:42,279
Speaker 1: have zero color charge, so they just fly through and

128
00:06:42,320 --> 00:06:45,080
Speaker 1: ignore it the way neutrinos, for example, ignore electric fields.

129
00:06:45,680 --> 00:06:48,120
Speaker 1: But quarks they feel all of the fields. The weak feel,

130
00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:50,960
Speaker 1: the strong field, the electromagnetic field, they feel all of them,

131
00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:53,960
Speaker 1: and the strong field is the strongest one, and so

132
00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:56,960
Speaker 1: it binds these particles together very very tightly. So the

133
00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,880
Speaker 1: proton and the neutron are both bound together using gluon.

134
00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:03,400
Speaker 2: And is there a history behind gluons that's going to

135
00:07:03,560 --> 00:07:06,200
Speaker 2: like make me think y'all aren't clever or was it

136
00:07:06,240 --> 00:07:08,880
Speaker 2: called gluons because it like seems to glue things together.

137
00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:12,640
Speaker 1: No, we're called the gluons because they glue the nucleus

138
00:07:12,680 --> 00:07:15,600
Speaker 1: together exactly. And there's a whole fascinating history about the

139
00:07:15,640 --> 00:07:19,360
Speaker 1: discovery of gluons and the personalities involved. It was really

140
00:07:19,400 --> 00:07:22,120
Speaker 1: interesting moment with fascinating history. But basically every discovery in

141
00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:25,760
Speaker 1: particle physics has like cool personalities and controversies.

142
00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:28,200
Speaker 2: You would say that as a prominent member of that community.

143
00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:34,040
Speaker 1: They're not always positive stories. You know, there's like arguments

144
00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:36,880
Speaker 1: and people peeing on other people's experiments, and like, you know,

145
00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:40,360
Speaker 1: these are human stories, because hey, physicists are people, you know,

146
00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:42,800
Speaker 1: we're just curious about the universe, and there are Nobel

147
00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:45,880
Speaker 1: prizes at stake, so you don't always get the best

148
00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:46,760
Speaker 1: side of everybody.

149
00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:49,120
Speaker 2: They sure smell like people. You walk up to them,

150
00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:51,640
Speaker 2: you're like, yeah, you're a person. But anyway, okay, one

151
00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:54,040
Speaker 2: day we should get the great story behind gluons. But

152
00:07:54,560 --> 00:07:56,160
Speaker 2: let's talk about how neutrons decay.

153
00:07:56,400 --> 00:07:58,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the fascinating thing that neutrons can do that

154
00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:01,920
Speaker 1: protons do not do is that they decay. They don't

155
00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,280
Speaker 1: last forever. You have a neutron out there in the universe,

156
00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:08,840
Speaker 1: just by itself, it's gonna turn into a proton. And

157
00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:11,840
Speaker 1: the way it does this is that one of those quarks,

158
00:08:11,840 --> 00:08:14,960
Speaker 1: the dcork, turns into an upcork, so it goes from

159
00:08:15,040 --> 00:08:18,160
Speaker 1: D to up. Now it starts out as a D cork,

160
00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:21,600
Speaker 1: which is charged negative one third, and becomes an upcork,

161
00:08:21,760 --> 00:08:24,840
Speaker 1: which is charged two thirds. So to conserve electric charge,

162
00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:27,840
Speaker 1: it has to emit a negatively charged particle, so it

163
00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:30,880
Speaker 1: emits a W minus which has charged negative one So

164
00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:34,320
Speaker 1: all the charges balance out. So this dcork emits a

165
00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:38,280
Speaker 1: W minus and turns into an upcork, turning the neutron

166
00:08:38,480 --> 00:08:41,840
Speaker 1: into a proton, and then shooting off this W minus particle.

167
00:08:42,080 --> 00:08:45,880
Speaker 2: Okay, so neutron, when it becomes a proton, you get

168
00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:48,160
Speaker 2: a proton and an electron that shoots off.

169
00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:51,360
Speaker 1: You get a W minus, not an electron, but you're close.

170
00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:53,880
Speaker 1: Because the W minus doesn't live for very long. It

171
00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:58,600
Speaker 1: turns into an electron and an anti neutrino, and so

172
00:08:58,880 --> 00:09:02,160
Speaker 1: that's basically the process is the neutron turns into a

173
00:09:02,160 --> 00:09:04,560
Speaker 1: proton in order to balance the charge it has to

174
00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:07,200
Speaker 1: carry along an electron eventually, right, because you start with

175
00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:09,400
Speaker 1: a neutron it's zero charge, you end up with a

176
00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:11,600
Speaker 1: proton with plus one, and you need the electron with

177
00:09:11,679 --> 00:09:15,319
Speaker 1: minus one to balance the electric charges. But the universe

178
00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:18,760
Speaker 1: is not happy with that because the universe also conserves

179
00:09:18,800 --> 00:09:22,520
Speaker 1: the number of electrons. Like, you can't just create electrons

180
00:09:22,559 --> 00:09:25,640
Speaker 1: willy nilly. The universe keeps tabs on that. So if

181
00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:27,480
Speaker 1: you create an electron, you also have to create an

182
00:09:27,520 --> 00:09:31,360
Speaker 1: anti electron or it turns out electron neutrinos also count.

183
00:09:31,559 --> 00:09:34,199
Speaker 1: So if you create an electron and an anti electron

184
00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:37,600
Speaker 1: neutrino at the same time, then everything balances out. You've

185
00:09:37,600 --> 00:09:40,040
Speaker 1: accounted for everything the universe cares about.

186
00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:43,720
Speaker 2: I think the up down quarks give me this maybe

187
00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:45,960
Speaker 2: false sense of understanding what's going on, because I just

188
00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:48,040
Speaker 2: imagine an up arrow and a down arrow and I'm like, oh,

189
00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:49,600
Speaker 2: I got it. You just flip the down arrow. Now

190
00:09:49,640 --> 00:09:51,520
Speaker 2: it's pointing up. But what does it mean to say

191
00:09:51,559 --> 00:09:54,400
Speaker 2: it emits a W minus? Is it just like the

192
00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:58,480
Speaker 2: change in energy gets expelled, and that's what it means

193
00:09:58,480 --> 00:09:59,960
Speaker 2: to say emitting a W minus.

194
00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:02,600
Speaker 1: We really do think about these things as a pair,

195
00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:04,640
Speaker 1: or the up on the top and the D on

196
00:10:04,679 --> 00:10:07,079
Speaker 1: the bottom, And the way we think about it from

197
00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:09,439
Speaker 1: a sort of theoretical point of view is that the

198
00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:11,840
Speaker 1: W is the way to go up or down. So

199
00:10:11,840 --> 00:10:14,680
Speaker 1: there's actually two w's, the W plus and the W minus.

200
00:10:14,800 --> 00:10:16,439
Speaker 1: If you want to go from the D to the U,

201
00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:18,560
Speaker 1: you emit a W minus. If you want to go

202
00:10:18,600 --> 00:10:21,120
Speaker 1: from the U to the D, you emit a W plus.

203
00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:24,000
Speaker 1: So these are sort of like stair steps in order

204
00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:26,120
Speaker 1: to go from one to the other. That's sort of

205
00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:28,560
Speaker 1: the same way around an atom. An electron can go

206
00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:30,720
Speaker 1: up and down energy levels, and to do so, it

207
00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:35,200
Speaker 1: either emits or absorbs a photon. These ws change the

208
00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:37,280
Speaker 1: state from a D to a U, and there is

209
00:10:37,320 --> 00:10:40,640
Speaker 1: a connection to the sort of underlying theoretical structure which

210
00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:44,040
Speaker 1: we usually represent using these things called groups, where you

211
00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:46,440
Speaker 1: can transform an object, but it stays within a little

212
00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:49,079
Speaker 1: pre defined set that's called a group, and so it's

213
00:10:49,080 --> 00:10:51,320
Speaker 1: deeply connected to the sort of group theory structure, which

214
00:10:51,360 --> 00:10:53,480
Speaker 1: I think we should dig into sometime on the podcast.

215
00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:56,120
Speaker 1: But the basic version is that the up is sort

216
00:10:56,120 --> 00:10:58,439
Speaker 1: of the higher state and the down is the lower state.

217
00:10:58,600 --> 00:11:01,400
Speaker 1: But you can move between them using these ws.

218
00:11:01,640 --> 00:11:03,679
Speaker 2: Okay, awesome, all right, I think I get that. Thank you.

219
00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:07,400
Speaker 2: So you can go from neutron to proton. But protons

220
00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:10,959
Speaker 2: don't decay into neutrons. Why do neutrons decay?

221
00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:15,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. Why do neutrons decay and protons don't. Well,

222
00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:18,440
Speaker 1: neutrons have a higher mass than protons, and so when

223
00:11:18,559 --> 00:11:20,679
Speaker 1: a neutron decays, it gives off a little bit of

224
00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:23,640
Speaker 1: energy and turns into a proton. Why does a neutron

225
00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:25,600
Speaker 1: have a higher mass than a proton. Well, remember, the

226
00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:29,199
Speaker 1: mass of these guys comes from the bonds between the quarks.

227
00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:31,600
Speaker 1: It's not because the neutron is made of heavier stuff

228
00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:34,080
Speaker 1: than the protons. These up and down quarks have almost

229
00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:37,000
Speaker 1: no mass, basically zero compared to the mass of the

230
00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:39,640
Speaker 1: proton and the neutron. All of the mass of these

231
00:11:39,720 --> 00:11:43,120
Speaker 1: guys comes from the gluons, the arrangements of the particles,

232
00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:46,240
Speaker 1: and so the neutron state up down down is a

233
00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:49,880
Speaker 1: higher energy configuration than the up, up down proton state,

234
00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:52,360
Speaker 1: and so it's just like a higher energy level the

235
00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:54,320
Speaker 1: way like around an atom. You know, there's like the

236
00:11:54,360 --> 00:11:57,000
Speaker 1: five two S state is a higher energy level than

237
00:11:57,040 --> 00:11:59,280
Speaker 1: like the two P or whatever. There's all these different

238
00:11:59,400 --> 00:12:01,480
Speaker 1: energy levels, and they have to do with the arrangements

239
00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:05,000
Speaker 1: between the particles, the configurations, and so the strong nuclear

240
00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:08,960
Speaker 1: force super duper complicated. But this neutron state, the UDD state,

241
00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:12,400
Speaker 1: is higher energy than the UUD and so it can

242
00:12:12,440 --> 00:12:14,640
Speaker 1: decay down. And that's what the universe does. It always

243
00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:18,040
Speaker 1: starts with massive particles which decay down into lighter particles.

244
00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:22,080
Speaker 1: The proton can't decay because there's nothing lighter than the proton.

245
00:12:22,800 --> 00:12:25,560
Speaker 1: Like you can't find a state that's lighter than the proton.

246
00:12:25,559 --> 00:12:27,920
Speaker 1: If you turned that other D into a U for example,

247
00:12:28,040 --> 00:12:31,120
Speaker 1: it actually would be a higher energy state than the proton.

248
00:12:31,520 --> 00:12:33,040
Speaker 1: So the proton is sort of like the bottom of

249
00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:35,800
Speaker 1: the ladder, the same way the electron is. The muon

250
00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:38,280
Speaker 1: can decay into an electron and other stuff. Why doesn't

251
00:12:38,320 --> 00:12:40,920
Speaker 1: the electron decay because there's nothing for it to decay into.

252
00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:44,040
Speaker 1: It's the lightest particle, and therefore it's stable. Now, we

253
00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:46,520
Speaker 1: don't know that the proton is actually stable, we've just

254
00:12:46,600 --> 00:12:49,680
Speaker 1: never seen it decay, and so we can estimate that

255
00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:52,720
Speaker 1: its lifetime is super duper long because we've watched a

256
00:12:52,760 --> 00:12:54,440
Speaker 1: bunch of protons for a long time to see if

257
00:12:54,440 --> 00:12:56,720
Speaker 1: any of them decay and never seen a single one decay,

258
00:12:56,720 --> 00:12:59,880
Speaker 1: which means either they're totally stable, like they live forever,

259
00:13:00,679 --> 00:13:02,960
Speaker 1: or they live for such a long time that we

260
00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:05,440
Speaker 1: just haven't seen one yet, and that lifetime would be

261
00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:08,200
Speaker 1: like billions and billions of years. So neutrons are super

262
00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:11,240
Speaker 1: fascinating because they actually do decay, so we can learn

263
00:13:11,280 --> 00:13:13,400
Speaker 1: something about what's going on inside them.

264
00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:16,120
Speaker 2: So, in the nucleus of an atom, you have the

265
00:13:16,120 --> 00:13:18,800
Speaker 2: same number of protons and neutrons, but the number of

266
00:13:18,800 --> 00:13:22,440
Speaker 2: protons isn't changing over time, but neutrons are decaying into protons.

267
00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:26,360
Speaker 2: What's gonna happen? Are we eventually not gonna have enough

268
00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:27,520
Speaker 2: neutrons for everything?

269
00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:30,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really amazing because remember we were talking

270
00:13:30,880 --> 00:13:33,640
Speaker 1: about neutrons by themselves. A single neutron in the middle

271
00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:37,120
Speaker 1: of space will decay in about eleven to twelve minutes,

272
00:13:37,679 --> 00:13:40,120
Speaker 1: So you might be wondering, why isn't everything inside me?

273
00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:42,400
Speaker 1: Why aren't all my neutrons turning into protons? And then

274
00:13:42,480 --> 00:13:46,360
Speaker 1: like you know, everything's going haywire because the neutron is stable.

275
00:13:46,520 --> 00:13:49,440
Speaker 1: If it's inside the atom, it's unstable and will decay

276
00:13:49,440 --> 00:13:52,920
Speaker 1: into a proton when it's outside by itself, but inside

277
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:55,439
Speaker 1: the atom, all of its other neutron and proton buddies

278
00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:59,000
Speaker 1: stabilize it. That's really weird, right, what's going on was

279
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:02,360
Speaker 1: some really interesting stuff is happening there because when the

280
00:14:02,400 --> 00:14:05,400
Speaker 1: neutrons and the protons are together in the nucleus, they're

281
00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:08,359
Speaker 1: not just like packed in like tennis balls. They're interacting

282
00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:11,600
Speaker 1: with each other. Right, These things are quarks with gluons

283
00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:14,199
Speaker 1: holding them together, but they're not completely sealed off from

284
00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:16,679
Speaker 1: anything else. If you're like on one side of the gluon,

285
00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:18,280
Speaker 1: you might be closer to one of the quarks or

286
00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:20,680
Speaker 1: closer to one of the other quarks. So you can

287
00:14:20,720 --> 00:14:24,640
Speaker 1: actually feel the quarks inside the neutron if you're nearby it.

288
00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:26,600
Speaker 1: And so the atom is not just like a bunch

289
00:14:26,640 --> 00:14:29,680
Speaker 1: of tennis balls totally sealed off. They're interacting with each other.

290
00:14:29,880 --> 00:14:33,080
Speaker 1: There's this little residual strong force that's actually what holds

291
00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:34,080
Speaker 1: the nucleus together.

292
00:14:34,400 --> 00:14:36,480
Speaker 2: Friends help you hold everything together.

293
00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:40,360
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, And so inside of the nucleus, neutrons can

294
00:14:40,400 --> 00:14:43,080
Speaker 1: live a long long time. Sometimes they can live forever.

295
00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:45,840
Speaker 1: Like take a carbon atom. Carbon has a bunch of

296
00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:49,480
Speaker 1: neutrons in the nuclei. Those neutrons will live forever. You

297
00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:51,120
Speaker 1: have a carbon atom, we think it could just sit

298
00:14:51,200 --> 00:14:54,600
Speaker 1: in space for a zillion zillion zillion years. Other elements

299
00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:57,600
Speaker 1: are not as stable, like uranium, for example, will break down,

300
00:14:58,000 --> 00:14:59,760
Speaker 1: and one of the ways it does is through these

301
00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:03,240
Speaker 1: kind of decays. And so neutrons can either crack open

302
00:15:03,280 --> 00:15:06,200
Speaker 1: your nucleus if they're not quite stable enough, or they

303
00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:09,080
Speaker 1: can help it stay together. Like the reason the nucleus

304
00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:11,640
Speaker 1: stays together all these protons which otherwise are pushing each

305
00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:14,320
Speaker 1: other apart, is because the neutrons are there in between

306
00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:16,840
Speaker 1: you to help stabilize it, to pull them together with

307
00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:19,080
Speaker 1: the strong force, and to keep the protons from pulling

308
00:15:19,160 --> 00:15:22,440
Speaker 1: themselves apart. So neutrons are really the glue that holds

309
00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:23,560
Speaker 1: the whole universe together.

310
00:15:23,680 --> 00:15:26,800
Speaker 2: I feel like you could write nerdy Hallmark cards.

311
00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:30,040
Speaker 1: I love you and your neutrons.

312
00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:36,280
Speaker 2: That's right. You hold me together, you're my proton, you

313
00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:38,560
Speaker 2: keep me from decay. That's right.

314
00:15:41,120 --> 00:15:44,000
Speaker 1: But there's also still a bunch of mysteries about the neutron,

315
00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:47,200
Speaker 1: Like we think we understand the basic story here, but

316
00:15:47,480 --> 00:15:50,440
Speaker 1: you know, particle physicist nerds always want to drill down

317
00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:52,320
Speaker 1: and said, do we really understand it. Let's make a

318
00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:55,200
Speaker 1: bunch of really precise measurements in different ways and see

319
00:15:55,200 --> 00:15:58,520
Speaker 1: if there's anything surprising. So there's this mystery right now

320
00:15:58,560 --> 00:16:01,520
Speaker 1: in exactly how long the neutron does live?

321
00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:03,480
Speaker 2: How do we ask that question?

322
00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:06,040
Speaker 1: So people came up with two very different ways to measure,

323
00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:09,080
Speaker 1: like how long does a neutron take to decay? There's

324
00:16:09,120 --> 00:16:12,120
Speaker 1: the bottle method and the beam method. And the bottle

325
00:16:12,160 --> 00:16:14,840
Speaker 1: method is pretty simple. It says, take a bunch of neutrons,

326
00:16:15,160 --> 00:16:17,560
Speaker 1: cool them down so they're not flying around everywhere, put

327
00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:20,360
Speaker 1: them in a bottle, and then just wait and see

328
00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:23,200
Speaker 1: how many you have, like you know, plot them over time.

329
00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:26,120
Speaker 1: The way we study radioactive decay or any kind of

330
00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:28,360
Speaker 1: random process is you start with a bunch of them

331
00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:29,680
Speaker 1: and you wait to see how long does it take

332
00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:32,720
Speaker 1: until you have half as many and that's the characteristic lifetime.

333
00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:35,000
Speaker 1: And so that's what they do, and they get a number.

334
00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:37,920
Speaker 1: It's like fourteen minutes and thirty nine seconds. It's the

335
00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:41,160
Speaker 1: characteristic lifetime of a neutron. This is a really cool

336
00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:44,440
Speaker 1: experiment they do in Los Alamos, New Mexico, actually my hometown,

337
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:48,080
Speaker 1: and they have these ultra cold neutrons. They've chilled them

338
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:51,520
Speaker 1: down to like milli kelvin inside this container they call

339
00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:54,800
Speaker 1: the bathtub. It's like one meter in diameter. They just

340
00:16:54,840 --> 00:16:57,080
Speaker 1: like fill it with neutrons and count them and then

341
00:16:57,160 --> 00:16:59,560
Speaker 1: wait to see what happens. And so they get their number.

342
00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:01,840
Speaker 1: And you know, these are serious dudes. They take it

343
00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:04,159
Speaker 1: very seriously. They've account for all sorts of uncertainty, they

344
00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:06,960
Speaker 1: have cross checks whatever. They're very confident in their number.

345
00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:10,400
Speaker 1: But there's another experiment, the beam experiment, and they don't

346
00:17:10,440 --> 00:17:11,359
Speaker 1: get the same answer.

347
00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:13,760
Speaker 2: What how much does it differ by the.

348
00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:16,919
Speaker 1: Beam experiment makes a neutron beam? And you know we

349
00:17:16,920 --> 00:17:19,359
Speaker 1: said that neutrons decay into protons, right, So they had

350
00:17:19,359 --> 00:17:22,000
Speaker 1: this clever idea like, oh, neutrons are actually really hard

351
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:24,600
Speaker 1: to count. The other guys have this complicated, sophisticated equipment

352
00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:27,560
Speaker 1: to count neutrons. They're hard. Let's just count the protons.

353
00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:30,440
Speaker 1: If neutrons are decaying into protons, let's just count the protons.

354
00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:33,200
Speaker 1: And so they fly it through an electromagnetic field, filter

355
00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:36,040
Speaker 1: out the protons and count those and they get a

356
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:39,600
Speaker 1: different answer. They get a slightly longer answer by nine seconds.

357
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:42,280
Speaker 1: So instead of fourteen minutes and thirty nine seconds, they

358
00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:45,120
Speaker 1: get fourteen minutes and forty eight seconds. So they think

359
00:17:45,200 --> 00:17:47,960
Speaker 1: neutrons live a little bit longer than the bathtub.

360
00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:49,879
Speaker 2: Guys, but don't you have to at least know how

361
00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:53,240
Speaker 2: many neutrons you're starting with, because if you get ten protons,

362
00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:55,760
Speaker 2: but you don't know how many neutrons you started with,

363
00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:58,159
Speaker 2: how do you know the rate of decay?

364
00:17:58,440 --> 00:18:01,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, good question. They know how many neutrons they've started

365
00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:03,800
Speaker 1: with because they know how they produce the neutrons, Okay,

366
00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:06,000
Speaker 1: and so they think they've accounted for that. But you

367
00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:09,280
Speaker 1: know something is going on here, like it's the same process.

368
00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:11,880
Speaker 1: They should get the same answer. So either somebody's made

369
00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:15,760
Speaker 1: a subtle air totally possible, right, and they both work

370
00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:19,400
Speaker 1: really really hard to reduce these uncertainties. Often in this scenario,

371
00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:21,960
Speaker 1: you get two experiments. They get different measurements, but they

372
00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:24,119
Speaker 1: both have large uncertainties and they overlap, and then they

373
00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:27,040
Speaker 1: both work really really hard to refine their experiments, and

374
00:18:27,119 --> 00:18:30,560
Speaker 1: usually as the uncertainty shrink, the results converge into one answer.

375
00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:33,920
Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, cool, the universe is coherent. But what's

376
00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:36,840
Speaker 1: happening here is that the uncertainties are shrinking, but the

377
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:39,520
Speaker 1: answers are not getting closer together, so they're getting more

378
00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:43,360
Speaker 1: and more confident in their discrepancy, which means, hey, maybe

379
00:18:43,359 --> 00:18:46,840
Speaker 1: there's some new interesting physics. Maybe the neutron, like the

380
00:18:46,880 --> 00:18:50,320
Speaker 1: boring vanilla particle most people aren't excited about, is actually

381
00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:53,800
Speaker 1: the portal to discovering the nature of the universe. You

382
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:58,240
Speaker 1: all are pros at Silver Linings, Well, this is really

383
00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:01,760
Speaker 1: fun idea that maybe neutrons don't just decay to protons.

384
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:06,440
Speaker 1: Maybe sometimes neutrons decay into something else, like dark matter,

385
00:19:06,920 --> 00:19:09,520
Speaker 1: and so in the neutron beam, what's happening is these

386
00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:12,320
Speaker 1: neutrons are just disappearing into dark matter, and those guys

387
00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:14,919
Speaker 1: are not measuring it. So maybe the bathtub guys are

388
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:18,000
Speaker 1: right because they're actually measuring the neutrons, whereas the guys

389
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:20,600
Speaker 1: who are assuming they turn into protons. They're the ones

390
00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:24,240
Speaker 1: getting the wrong answer because it's not always going to protons.

391
00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:25,639
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's going to dark matter.

392
00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:28,280
Speaker 2: And we can't measure dark matter right.

393
00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:30,080
Speaker 1: We do not have ways to measure dark matter is

394
00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:32,400
Speaker 1: certainly not in these beams, and so this is really

395
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:35,240
Speaker 1: interesting and really important because it could be an indication

396
00:19:35,359 --> 00:19:38,080
Speaker 1: of something that's happening. And it's also important because it

397
00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:40,960
Speaker 1: helps us understand the early universe. You know, in the

398
00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:43,840
Speaker 1: very early universe, we had like quarks and gluons flying

399
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:47,920
Speaker 1: around and things cool down into hydrogen and briefly also

400
00:19:48,080 --> 00:19:52,000
Speaker 1: forming some helium. And that ratio of hydrogen helium is

401
00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:55,000
Speaker 1: super important because it tells us something about the density

402
00:19:55,040 --> 00:19:57,640
Speaker 1: of quarks at that time and what the early universe

403
00:19:57,760 --> 00:20:00,560
Speaker 1: was really like. And we need neutrons in order to

404
00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:03,000
Speaker 1: form helium, Like you can't form helium without neutrons. You

405
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:05,800
Speaker 1: can just squeeze protons together. You have to have those

406
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:08,840
Speaker 1: neutrons to facilitate. But if the neutrons decay a little

407
00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:12,440
Speaker 1: bit faster than they aren't around as long to make helium.

408
00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:15,040
Speaker 1: If neutrons decay slower, there are more of them to

409
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:19,119
Speaker 1: stick around and make helium. More helium means smaller, longer

410
00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:21,960
Speaker 1: lasting stars, so it has this cascading effect on the

411
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:27,320
Speaker 1: whole history of the universe. Super fascinating anyway, neutrons really amazing.

412
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:30,479
Speaker 1: Thank you very much Scott for asking about this, and

413
00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:32,879
Speaker 1: I hope that we've answered all of your questions about

414
00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:36,720
Speaker 1: neutrons and inspired new ones. Let's hear what Scott has

415
00:20:36,760 --> 00:20:39,440
Speaker 1: to say about our story of neutrons.

416
00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:43,000
Speaker 3: Hi, Daniel and Kelly, thank you for the thoughtful answer.

417
00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:46,119
Speaker 3: It seems like the neutron has a pr problem and

418
00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:47,400
Speaker 3: I'm just not.

419
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:49,080
Speaker 1: Okay with that state of affairs.

420
00:20:49,760 --> 00:20:52,960
Speaker 3: Neutrons do some very cool and rather important things and

421
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:56,679
Speaker 3: the world really needs to know. As a follow up question,

422
00:20:56,960 --> 00:20:59,919
Speaker 3: if a free neutron decays in a matter of minutes,

423
00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:03,280
Speaker 3: does that imply that the study of neutron guts is

424
00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:08,000
Speaker 3: practically more difficult than the study of proton guts. Thanks

425
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:09,399
Speaker 3: again for everything you guys do.

426
00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:13,280
Speaker 1: Great question. Well, we can study neutrons because there are

427
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 1: lots of them, but seeing them fall apart is actually

428
00:21:16,119 --> 00:21:19,320
Speaker 1: useful because it gives us something to measure, to predict,

429
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:22,600
Speaker 1: to calculate. Protons, on the other hand, just sit there,

430
00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:24,439
Speaker 1: so we have to do some work to smash them

431
00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:27,280
Speaker 1: or poke them to learn anything. So neutrons are actually

432
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:45,080
Speaker 1: being helpful, all right.

433
00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:46,720
Speaker 2: So I gotta tell you, I'm on the edge of

434
00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:49,280
Speaker 2: my seat trying to figure out what ties together all

435
00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:51,359
Speaker 2: of the three questions that we got today. It's still

436
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:53,720
Speaker 2: not clear to me other than the fact that, like,

437
00:21:53,760 --> 00:21:55,879
Speaker 2: bananas are made of protons and neutrons.

438
00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:56,400
Speaker 1: Hmmmm?

439
00:21:57,080 --> 00:21:58,520
Speaker 2: Is that it was it that simple?

440
00:21:58,760 --> 00:22:00,439
Speaker 1: No more than that.

441
00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:03,280
Speaker 2: It's gotta be more than that, Okay, So our next

442
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:07,439
Speaker 2: question is about bananas. Matt from Discord had this question.

443
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:10,919
Speaker 4: Hi, Danielle Kelly, this is Matt from Indiana. I was

444
00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:13,800
Speaker 4: walking through the grocery store and notice there are all

445
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:19,240
Speaker 4: sorts of varieties of peppers, red green, tiny, big yellow orange,

446
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:24,199
Speaker 4: tons of apple varieties, red delicious, Granny Smith. And then

447
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:28,159
Speaker 4: I got to the bananas, just bananas, plain bananas, no

448
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:30,959
Speaker 4: matter where I go. And then I found out that

449
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:35,200
Speaker 4: most bananas we eat are banana clones. So why banana

450
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:37,879
Speaker 4: clones and not from seeds is what I'm curious of.

451
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 4: Thanks at advance, and thanks for giving me an excuse

452
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:42,600
Speaker 4: to say bananas way too many times.

453
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 2: Oh man. So I was excited to have an opportunity

454
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 2: to read more about bananas. So let's start with banana reproduction.

455
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 2: Bananas can reproduce in two different ways. They reproduce sexually

456
00:22:55,520 --> 00:23:01,000
Speaker 2: by making seeds, and they reproduce asexually by producing suckers.

457
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:02,920
Speaker 1: Hold on, wait, I have a question already. Okay, great,

458
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 1: First of all, bananas reproduce or banana trees reproduced, right,

459
00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:09,480
Speaker 1: because the bananas themselves are just part of the banana tree.

460
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:11,439
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, yes, you're right. You're right. I was

461
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,159
Speaker 2: being lazy with my words, although I'm gonna call you

462
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 2: on it, because bananas aren't really trees. I think technically

463
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:18,200
Speaker 2: they're curves.

464
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:20,080
Speaker 1: Really, do you remember one of.

465
00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:22,280
Speaker 2: Our other episodes we were talking about the anatomy of

466
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 2: the tree and how it forms rings. Bananas are just

467
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:29,359
Speaker 2: taxonomically distantly related. They don't form that way. They just

468
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:33,119
Speaker 2: kind of have like a stalk that's really trunk and

469
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,240
Speaker 2: tree like in the middle. But they're not like typical trees.

470
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 1: Well, all right, so banana trees are not trees. I've

471
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 1: already learned something. And what part of the plant is

472
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:44,679
Speaker 1: the banana? Is it fruit the way an apple? Is

473
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 1: this just something else weird? I remember strawberries or something

474
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 1: totally different. Which part of the plant are we actually

475
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 1: snacking on?

476
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 2: It is the fruit?

477
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:52,160
Speaker 1: Okay?

478
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:54,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what do you mean by strawberries aren't really

479
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 2: the fruit? I'm confused.

480
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,119
Speaker 1: Didn't we do an episode where like strawberries are actually

481
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:00,080
Speaker 1: the seed or something? I don't remember I remember, I

482
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: mean something surprising about.

483
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,960
Speaker 2: Strawberry Strawberry seeds are on the outside, which is atypical.

484
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,119
Speaker 2: But was that the whole fact?

485
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,360
Speaker 1: Anymore? Biology doesn't stay in my head as long as

486
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:09,880
Speaker 1: physics stock.

487
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 2: No, busted, Let's get away from this.

488
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,360
Speaker 1: So back to bananas. Bananas are the fruit, but they're

489
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 1: not technically growing on trees, because I thought fruit had

490
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: to grow on trees.

491
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 2: No, I mean like strawberries aren't growing on trees.

492
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:22,879
Speaker 1: Hmmm, all right, cool.

493
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 2: Although I guess maybe we're not quite sure if strawberries

494
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 2: are fruits. We're all confused today.

495
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. It doesn't mean people aren't show Okay,

496
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 1: got it, I got it. I'm far for an expert.

497
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 1: All right, So bananas can reproduce sexually or asexually.

498
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:36,600
Speaker 2: You were telling us yes, And so what happens with

499
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 2: the asexual reproduction is that the giant stalk that looks

500
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 2: like a trunk at the bottom underground. In addition to

501
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 2: its roots, it's producing what are called suckers. And these

502
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 2: suckers come out from the mother plant and pop up

503
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 2: along the sides, and they are essentially just clones of

504
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 2: the mom and they'll stay connected for a while, but

505
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 2: you can cut them off, move them somewhere else, and

506
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 2: now you've got a new banana plance.

507
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:02,879
Speaker 1: And why do biologists call them suckers? I mean that

508
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:05,640
Speaker 1: makes me think of the things on an octopus's tentacle.

509
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 1: Are these like an octopus tentacles sticking out through the

510
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 1: ground or what's going on here? Do they suck in

511
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 1: some way?

512
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 2: I don't know the history, but it's just a much

513
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:15,119
Speaker 2: more fun name than any of you guys would have

514
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:17,880
Speaker 2: come up with. I'm kidding. Glue ones is a great name.

515
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:20,440
Speaker 1: I wish we had called some particle the suckers. That

516
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: would have been really fun.

517
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:23,680
Speaker 2: You might discover a new particle, and I think that's

518
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 2: what you should name it.

519
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: In the suckers beam, that's right. So they can basically

520
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: clone themselves, make mini versions, or they can actually get

521
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: it on with their neighbors.

522
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 2: That's right. And there's something like a thousand species of

523
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 2: plant that could be called banana plants. Oh, so it's

524
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 2: a lot of diversity. But at some point in the past,

525
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 2: so like bananas don't fossilize, so it's hard to know

526
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 2: exactly when humans started eating bananas, but way before written

527
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:53,160
Speaker 2: records were a thing for our species. What we think

528
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,439
Speaker 2: happened was that a banana plant had a mutation and

529
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,479
Speaker 2: it didn't produce seeds. And you would know if your

530
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,719
Speaker 2: banana had seeds in it because the seeds produced by

531
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 2: lots of banana plants are big and hard, and it

532
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:07,760
Speaker 2: would be very unpleasant to eat a banana with seeds

533
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 2: in it. And so bananas don't have seeds. And some

534
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,160
Speaker 2: human must have found this tree and they were like, oh,

535
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 2: this is solid. There's nothing that cracks my teeth in

536
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 2: this plant, and so they took the suckers and that

537
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 2: got propagated.

538
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 1: But this is like prehistory because we don't have records

539
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: of it. We don't know when this happened, that's right, Yeah,

540
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: So could it also have been the product of like

541
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: human breeding. We found like a plant with smaller seeds

542
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 1: and another one that crossbred them and pushed them in

543
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,400
Speaker 1: that direction. Or do you think it's more likely it's

544
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: just like one random mutation.

545
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:41,120
Speaker 2: Artificial selection could have helped it along. I believe our

546
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 2: understanding is that this happened before humans really had enough

547
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 2: of an understanding to engage an artificial selection on purpose.

548
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 1: Wow.

549
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 2: But it certainly could have been the case that Joe

550
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,239
Speaker 2: had a plant that had two seeds in it and

551
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 2: Sally had a plant that only had one, and everybody

552
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 2: wanted the suckers from Sally's plant. That's way better, and

553
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 2: over time that process could have played out. But I

554
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 2: don't think it was purposeful initially.

555
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: And so that was the last sexual reproduction of these

556
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: bananas that were eating in every reproduction of banana trees

557
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: since that moment has been asexual.

558
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 2: So my understanding is that there have been strains that

559
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 2: have arisen through this process. So it didn't necessarily happen

560
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,960
Speaker 2: just once. It could have happened in like five different

561
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,880
Speaker 2: banana trees in different areas, and now you've got these

562
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 2: different clonal lineages. But there's still all of those wild

563
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 2: banana species out there that are still producing seeds.

564
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 1: I see.

565
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 2: Okay, So around the nineteen hundreds, there was a strain

566
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 2: of bananas called the gro Michelle, which means big mic.

567
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: It sounds so much fancier inference.

568
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 2: It does. But the big mic was everywhere, and I'm

569
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 2: gonna bum everybody out, which is exactly what everybody expects

570
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 2: from me. Apparently the grow michelle bananas tasted better than

571
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 2: the bananas we have now.

572
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: Whoa.

573
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 2: But they were all clones, and so these were being

574
00:27:57,320 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 2: grown all over the world. Bananas were getting huge, They're

575
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:02,360
Speaker 2: being shipped all over the world, and a fungal infection

576
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:06,640
Speaker 2: broke out, and because all of the gro michells were clones,

577
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 2: they were all susceptible and it decimated the bananas around

578
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 2: the world. Socker, blue Blue, We're sorry, French speakers.

579
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 1: Wait, do you know what the kro Michelle tasted like?

580
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:22,479
Speaker 1: Do we have like written records or living people who

581
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: have eaten them who can tell us about this banana

582
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 1: that none of us will ever eat.

583
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 2: There probably are some people still alive who have eaten it.

584
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 2: I think it was just a sweeter tasting banana than

585
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 2: what we have now.

586
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: I know, the lost bananas, I know.

587
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 2: My gosh, it is said, it is said.

588
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: Is there somebody out there who's like going to de

589
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 1: extinctify the Groa michelle. That sounds like a billion dollar

590
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: idea right there.

591
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there might be someone who's still maintaining the

592
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 2: suckers from the Groa michelle in some lab somewhere, but

593
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 2: it remains susceptible to Panama disease, which is what we

594
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 2: call this fungal disease that wiped out the bananas. So

595
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 2: somebody maybe could bring it back. But when the Gromychelle declined,

596
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 2: the Cavendish arose, and the Cavendish must have just been

597
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 2: a slightly different strain that happened to be resistant to

598
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 2: the dominant fungal strain at the time, and so Cavendish.

599
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 2: If you live in North America, this is the banana

600
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 2: that you find on your grocery shelf. So if you

601
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 2: go to Harris Teeter or you go to Target, or

602
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 2: you go to Kroger, or you go to Trader Joe's

603
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 2: or Whole Foods, those are all the same banana genotypes.

604
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 2: They're clones everywhere you go.

605
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: They all have the same DNA you're saying.

606
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 2: They all have the same code in their DNA. There

607
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 2: could be a couple mutations, but they are very similar.

608
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 1: Wow.

609
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 2: Amazing In countries like Africa and India, they have a

610
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 2: greater appreciation for other banana varieties. So there are other

611
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 2: parts of the world where you can get other kinds

612
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 2: of bananas, but in the US we get this one.

613
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: I've traveled in Mexico and the grocery store is there.

614
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: They have lots of different kinds of bananas there, like

615
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: little dark red bananas that taste a little bit like strawberries. Whoa,

616
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: you know, big fat bananas, and all sorts of stuff.

617
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun.

618
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, And plantains are fairly popular in the and I

619
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 2: think that's another strain where there were no seeds that

620
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 2: were made and then that got propagated by suckers. But

621
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 2: in the nineteen nineties, bad news. Oh no, the Cavendish

622
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 2: gets affected by Panama disease. So this fungal disease has

623
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 2: continued to evolve while the Cavendish is staying still in

624
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 2: this evolutionary arms race, because it's just a clone that

625
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 2: we propagate over and over and over again. And there's

626
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 2: now a strain of Panama disease that is going after

627
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 2: the Cavendish bananas.

628
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: Why do they hate us so much?

629
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 2: I know, I know, fungus is the worst, except.

630
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: When it's helping us make beer and bread and al sorts.

631
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 2: Of Rather you get me things, you know, I guess

632
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 2: whenever you say a blanket statement, you're a most always

633
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 2: going to be wrong.

634
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: Some of them are really fun guys.

635
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 2: Actually, no, dad jokes, dead poetry. Okay. So now we've

636
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 2: got Panama disease and it is spreading, and so there's

637
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 2: some people who will be concerned what happens if the

638
00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 2: Cavendish declines? Do we have something waiting to replace it?

639
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 2: And the answer is no, no, no, what?

640
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: No? What are those people doing? Get on it? Food scientists.

641
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 2: There is a lot of money in bananas, so there's

642
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 2: a lot of people working on it. The first thing

643
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 2: that they're doing to try to slow the decline is

644
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 2: biocontrol efforts. So if you go to a major banana

645
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 2: plantation and you want to go amongst the trees, you

646
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 2: have to suit up in sterilized clothes, you have to

647
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 2: put on boots and then walk through a sterilizing solution,

648
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 2: and you have to do that every time you walk

649
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 2: from like one plot of bananas to another. Because the

650
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 2: way the fungus transmits is in the soil. So if

651
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 2: you get like dirt in your boots and then you

652
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 2: walk in another area, you can transmit that.

653
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: Wow.

654
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 2: So it's a pain in the rear end. And like

655
00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 2: every truck that comes in and out has to get sprayed.

656
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 2: But if they do find a tree that's infected, they

657
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 2: have to dump fungicides into the soil, kill everything in

658
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,480
Speaker 2: that area, cover it with urea, which I think just

659
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 2: also changes soil chemistry, making it more likely to kill

660
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 2: the fungus, cover it with the tarp so that birds

661
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 2: don't walk on it, and then bring the fungus somewhere else.

662
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 2: The next zone of plants also get like fungicides and

663
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 2: herbicides injected into the soil, and then the zone after

664
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 2: that you have to check, like every month, you have

665
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 2: to do like a survey to make sure none of

666
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 2: them have it. And so it's intense.

667
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: Apology is just so hard to control. It's always wriggling

668
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 1: and squirming out of our control.

669
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 2: Yes, well, man an invasive species. I feel like it's

670
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 2: such an interesting conversation about when do you just give up,

671
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 2: Like it's not worth trying to get starlings out of

672
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 2: the US anymore. They're not going anywhere.

673
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: They're here anyway, Well, what about bananas? Is there anything

674
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: else we can do? Like, can't we somehow protect our

675
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: bananas or cross them with other wild species or something?

676
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can hear the panic building in your voice.

677
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 2: Don't worry. We have a couple options.

678
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: I like banana bread.

679
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 2: Okay, I know, me too, Me too. Zach makes a

680
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 2: good banana bread. I don't get in the kitchen, but

681
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 2: he does a great job. So genetic engineering is one solution,

682
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 2: and they have in fact added genes from other plants,

683
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:01,959
Speaker 2: I think tomato to make the cavendish resist to Panama disease.

684
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 2: And this works, it is resistant. But in the European Union,

685
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 2: I believe, you're not allowed to sell genetically modified plants.

686
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 2: And in the United States there's a lot of people

687
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 2: who feel very squeamish about genetically modified plants, and so

688
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 2: the industry has decided that this can't be the solution.

689
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 2: It just would not be financially viable.

690
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 1: Wow, so he could save the bananas, but still it's

691
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 1: not good enough.

692
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 2: Not good enough, And so the last thing that they're

693
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 2: trying are breeding experiments. So apparently something like one in

694
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 2: ten thousand bananas will produce a seed. Sometimes it like

695
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 2: still slips through, so you can search bananas for that

696
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 2: seed and then cross the Cavendish with other species of

697
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 2: wild bananas, and so there are some efforts to cross breed.

698
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 2: But the problem is, like the Cavendish, it's actually an

699
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 2: absolute marble of a fruit. You know, it comes in

700
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 2: its own packaging that ripens over the course of a

701
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 2: week while it is in transit to you, so it

702
00:33:56,040 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 2: arrives to you mostly unbruised and now perfectly ready to eat.

703
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 2: And the various crosses that they've done have produced bananas

704
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 2: that are like, you know, maybe they're yellow, maybe they

705
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 2: still have a good you know, outer coating. But so

706
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 2: far they haven't been able to find anything that meets

707
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 2: all of their criteria and is delicious. I was reading

708
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 2: about one banana that looks like a Cavendish and tastes good,

709
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 2: but it's described as an acid banana, which doesn't sound delicious,

710
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 2: but it just doesn't taste like the Cavendish. And so

711
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 2: right now they haven't been able to find anything to

712
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 2: replace the Cavendish in what some people would say is

713
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,440
Speaker 2: a more sort of natural method. So that's where we are.

714
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 2: Are we going to have a banana in one to

715
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 2: two decades. We'll have to wait and see.

716
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, our children or our grandchildren might never

717
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: know the tastes of bananas the way we don't know

718
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 1: the taste of the groamy shell.

719
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:49,719
Speaker 2: I know it could be traged I mean, think of

720
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,240
Speaker 2: how many babies had bananas as their very first food

721
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:54,959
Speaker 2: or something like. It could be that my kid's first

722
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,399
Speaker 2: foods were smushed up bananas. My memory is a sieve,

723
00:34:57,480 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 2: so I don't know exactly what I fed them the

724
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 2: first time, but a banana.

725
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: And you know, there's something else fascinating about bananas, which

726
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: is that they are radioactive.

727
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 2: Is that gonna be the connection?

728
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: Don't give it away, Kelly. Yeah, but yes, inside bananas

729
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: there's naturally occurring potassium forty, which is unstable, and the

730
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,399
Speaker 1: neutrons inside potassium forty decay, And so if you are

731
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: hanging around a banana, it will emit high energy electrons

732
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: and anti neutrinos. Wow, which is technically a radiation.

733
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 2: Oh would we all be better off without bananas in

734
00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 2: our life?

735
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: I don't know. Bananas contribute to the natural radiation background,

736
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: which I'm sure affects the mutation rate so it's made

737
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: all of us who we are.

738
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:42,799
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Okay, on that deep dad poetry note. Let's

739
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:46,359
Speaker 2: find out if Matt found this answer satisfactory. And we'd

740
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,400
Speaker 2: also like to take this moment to thank Matt for

741
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 2: being an amazing moderator of our discord channel. And if

742
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 2: you want to join us on discord, go to Daniel

743
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:57,879
Speaker 2: and Kelly dot org not dot com, although dot com

744
00:35:57,880 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 2: appears to be a dead link now because the other

745
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 2: duel and Kelly got married and their website is down.

746
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 1: Which means either the wedding went wonderfully and they don't

747
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: care about it anymore, or maybe something didn't go so well.

748
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 2: Oh man, I'm hoping for the former.

749
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: Yes, good luck Daniel Kelly. Yes, but please do join

750
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: us on the discord with lots of people are asking

751
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: questions and having conversations about science and pizza and all

752
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 1: sorts of crazy stuff. Go to Danielankelly dot org to

753
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: find the link to join.

754
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 2: The discord, and let's hear what Matt had to say.

755
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 4: That answer was beautiful. Thank you so much.

756
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 5: Now I know more about banana suckers than I've ever

757
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 5: wanted to know. And also thanks for giving me a

758
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:34,879
Speaker 5: shout out on the discord for being an administrator there,

759
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 5: and we really do hope other people will join, just

760
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:41,439
Speaker 5: like Daniel said, please join us. We'll answer any questions. Yeah,

761
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 5: have a wonderful day, guys.

762
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:43,720
Speaker 2: Thanks.

763
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: All right, we're back and we are answering questions from listeners.

764
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: There's a special secret theme of today's podcast that's going

765
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: to tie all of these questions together. Let's see how

766
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:10,479
Speaker 1: long it takes Kelly to figure it out?

767
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 2: How many lifetimes?

768
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: The next question is from Steve, who has a question

769
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: about the biggest gaseest planet in the Solar System.

770
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 2: That isn't Uranus. Sorry I had to.

771
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 6: Hi, Daniel and Kelly. This is Steve from BC Canada.

772
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,400
Speaker 6: I have a controversial take here. Could it be said

773
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 6: that there is no such thing as a gas giant

774
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 6: because these planets have so much pressure that gas becomes liquefied.

775
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 6: So aren't they really liquid planets? Maybe liquid giants? Sure,

776
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 6: they are composed of liquid elements that are gaseous to

777
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 6: earthlings living in earthly pressures, but they are not earth

778
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 6: and they don't have earthly pressures, so we should be

779
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 6: calling them liquid giants. Don't you think? I think it's

780
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 6: about high time that we do a deep dive into

781
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 6: the inner workings of gas planets. What really are they?

782
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: All right? So Steve is asking a question about the

783
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: science of Jupiter, but also about the name of the

784
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:18,399
Speaker 1: category that Jupiter finds itself in gas giants. Are they

785
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: really gassy? Should we be calling them liquid giants? These

786
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:22,719
Speaker 1: are good questions, Steve.

787
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 2: These are great questions. Yeah, and you gotta tell Jupiter

788
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 2: and lay off the beans.

789
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 1: No, No, we're pro beans, even if it makes you gassy.

790
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 1: Katrina would tell me that beans makes everything better.

791
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 2: Nobody knows better than Katrina.

792
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 1: She certainly does. She certainly does, all right, So let's

793
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: dig into it. What in the end is Jupiter made

794
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 1: out of? Well, Jupiter, like Earth and the Sun, formed

795
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:47,760
Speaker 1: from this big blob of stuff that the whole Solar

796
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 1: System was made out of. And you know, the Solar

797
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,359
Speaker 1: system is mostly just the Sun. Like the Sun has

798
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 1: ninety nine points something percent of all the mass in

799
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: the Solar System. Basically, you have a much larger cloud

800
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: of stuff than our Solar system and others systems formed from.

801
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: But there was in there some seed, some gravitational over

802
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 1: density that pulled stuff together to form our Solar System,

803
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 1: and mostly that just collapsed into the center, and most

804
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:13,800
Speaker 1: of it was hydrogen, because that's what the universe started

805
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 1: out at. As in fourteen billion years later, were still

806
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: mostly hydrogen, and so the Sun is mostly hydrogen. But

807
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 1: near the Sun there were also other little areas of

808
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:26,359
Speaker 1: over density that managed to pull themselves together and hold

809
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 1: themselves together and resist the Sun's attraction, and that's how

810
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:32,799
Speaker 1: the planets formed. So you get small rocky planets like

811
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: Earth and the Inner Solar System because the Sun then

812
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,719
Speaker 1: blew away their atmospheres, but far enough out away from

813
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 1: the Sun, the Sun's radiation didn't blast away all the

814
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: helium and hydrogen, and there was ice out there. Things

815
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:46,840
Speaker 1: were cold enough to form ice crystals, so you had

816
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: a little bit of an advantage to make bigger planets

817
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 1: that could grab a little bit more mass. So Jupiter

818
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 1: is just a scoop of the original protosolar system that

819
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: everything else is made out of.

820
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 2: So it's a better representation of the protosolar system than Earth.

821
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Earth once had an atmosphere of hydrogen the

822
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:05,839
Speaker 1: way that the Sun does and the way Jupiter does,

823
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 1: but it was blown away by the early Sun and

824
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: so the Earth is not a great representation of what

825
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 1: the Solar System is. And actually we're gonna do an

826
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:15,280
Speaker 1: episode pretty soon about how we know what the universe

827
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:16,359
Speaker 1: is made out of it And it was a big

828
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 1: shocker when we discovered that most of the universe is

829
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 1: not made of the same stuff as the Earth. The

830
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: Earth is an unusual helping of Solar System or universe material.

831
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 2: Thankfully for us, Yes, exactly, thanks early for us.

832
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: That's why we have bananas. No, that's not the secret theme.

833
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: So Jupiter is mostly hydrogen right by mass. The outside

834
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 1: is like seventy six percent hydrogen and then twenty four

835
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:42,320
Speaker 1: percent helium and then just like trace tiny other stuff

836
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: like a little bit of carbon, a little bit oxygen,

837
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 1: and a little bit of salt for a little bit

838
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,839
Speaker 1: of neon. But the atmosphere, which is just really an

839
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 1: artificial designation of like a certain layer within Jupiter, is

840
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 1: mostly hydrogen and helium.

841
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 2: What would be the arbitrary divider for Jupiter? I do

842
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 2: think of Jupiter is being just gas all the way through,

843
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 2: and maybe that's just because it's called a gas giant.

844
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 2: So what is the dividing line or dividing criteria for

845
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 2: the atmosphere versus the interior yees.

846
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 1: So it's a little bit arbitrary, but basically, you have

847
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 1: layers of stuff that get denser and denser as you

848
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 1: go in. So you start out the very outer layers

849
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 1: of Jupiter are cloud layers, and so these are like

850
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 1: ammonia crystals. There's really high winds, but it's mostly gaseous

851
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: hydrogen with these clouds of ammonia crystals. And that's what

852
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,319
Speaker 1: you see when you look at Jupiter, you know, like

853
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: the rings and the red spot and all this stuff.

854
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:37,799
Speaker 1: These are like weather patterns in those clouds in the

855
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,719
Speaker 1: very very top layer of Jupiter's atmosphere. But then once

856
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: you penetrate through those layers of clouds, like fifty kilometers

857
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:50,319
Speaker 1: of clouds or so, below that, there's liquid hydrogen, right,

858
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:53,280
Speaker 1: And so hydrogen is an atom, but it also forms

859
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 1: H two, which is a molecule, and then it has

860
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: various phases and it depends on the temperature and depends

861
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: on the pressure. So you start out with gaseous hydrogen

862
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: and then you squeeze it down and you get liquid hydrogen.

863
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: And so this stuff flows, right, it's just denser, and

864
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 1: so you might say, all right, we're not really in

865
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:12,799
Speaker 1: the atmosphere anymore, because now we have a liquid and

866
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: you know, here on Earth we consider the atmosphere of

867
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: the gaseous part, and then the surface is where you

868
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: have like solid rock and also liquid. But it's not

869
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: quite so simple on Jupiter because it's not as clear

870
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: and crisp like here on Earth. You know, you have

871
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: liquid and above it is gas, and like if you're

872
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: swimming in the ocean, you can very clearly tell the

873
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: crisp difference. But on Jupiter, they don't really have the

874
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: same distinct transition between liquid and gas, and so you

875
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: have this like gradual transition between gaseous hydrogen and liquid hydrogen.

876
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: What's really going on here is that molecular hydrogen, if

877
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: you look at its phase diagram, there are some pressures

878
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 1: and temperatures where it's gas and some pressures in temperatures

879
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 1: where it's liquid. But there's this critical point, this temperature

880
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: and pressure above which it's not really gas and not

881
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 1: really liquid, and this transition sort of therefore gradual. There's

882
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: this sort of super critical fluid. It's not really technically

883
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: a liquid, it's not really technically a gas that has

884
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: some similarity to both, And so the reason you can't

885
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: just say like, oh, this is the surface of Jupiter

886
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: is that as you descend, it just sort of gets

887
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: denser and denser till eventually it feels like liquid. And

888
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: if you rose back up, it would get less and

889
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:22,800
Speaker 1: less dense, and then it would just sort of feel

890
00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 1: like gas. But it's a gradual transition rather than an

891
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 1: abrupt one the way it is here on Earth.

892
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:31,280
Speaker 2: I see we have yet again accidentally foraid into chemistry,

893
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 2: but I understand it better now.

894
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: And as you descend, the weather gets really really weird.

895
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:40,560
Speaker 1: So you get this like helium neon rain. What. Yeah,

896
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: I know, it's really crazy and not something I think

897
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 1: you should dance and sing in, for example. But this

898
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: is sort of rain like droplets. And what's happening is

899
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: that you have helium and neon the and the upper atmosphere,

900
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 1: but they come together and form these drops, which then

901
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 1: sink and depleting the abundance of these elements in the

902
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 1: upper atmosphere, and they fall down to lower levels of

903
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. And this is all very speculative. You know.

904
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: There are people who think, for example, like on Saturn,

905
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 1: there might be conditions that cause diamonds to rain, you know,

906
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 1: like formation of diamonds in the atmosphere because the intense

907
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: pressure which then fall below. But a lot of this

908
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:16,720
Speaker 1: is speculative. This is like people running models and thinking

909
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 1: maybe this is what happens and it's super cool. But

910
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:21,799
Speaker 1: you know, the big fixture story here is like, we

911
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 1: really don't understand this stuff. A lot of this is

912
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:25,919
Speaker 1: just speculation.

913
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 2: Which is why we need more money to go out

914
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 2: there and find out definitely do.

915
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: And then things get even weirder as you squeeze it down.

916
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:35,800
Speaker 1: As you go down further towards the center of Jupiter,

917
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:38,799
Speaker 1: you're getting higher temperature and higher pressure. Then you reach

918
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: this region where the hydrogen is metallic, right, And metallic

919
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,760
Speaker 1: is a really weird term to apply to hydrogen because

920
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: in astronomy usually they say, well you have helium and

921
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: you have hydrogen. Everything else they call them metal, right,

922
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 1: So if you talk about the metallicity of stars, it

923
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:56,799
Speaker 1: means how much of the star is not hydrogen, how

924
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: much of it is not helium, everything else they call

925
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: a metal have a different meaning for what is a metal? Right.

926
00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: They're thinking about things where the electrons are flowing because

927
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 1: the atoms are sort of linked together and the electrons

928
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: are not attached to individual atoms. And that's what we're

929
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: talking about here. This is like the chemical version of

930
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 1: a metal.

931
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 2: Does it mean that the atoms are flowing or we're

932
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:17,800
Speaker 2: using the chemistry definition.

933
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, we're using the chemistry definition. Because what happens

934
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 1: is you take those H two molecules, you squeeze them together,

935
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:27,560
Speaker 1: and the hygen forms something like a lattice. Right, instead

936
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: of having individual H two molecules which have some interaction,

937
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: you know, because of the polarity of them, now you're

938
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 1: squeezing them together, so the electrons can just jump from

939
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: one hydrogen to another hydrogen to another one. It's like

940
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 1: a big crystal. It's not quite as tight, but it

941
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: conducts electricity. Right. Normally hydrogen does not conduct any electricity,

942
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 1: but you squeeze it together, you make it dense enough

943
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:52,240
Speaker 1: it will conduct. And so it has this like bulk

944
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 1: lattice phase with delocalized electrons in it. And this is

945
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 1: something people have been thinking for decades and decades, and

946
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 1: only the last few years have they been able to

947
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: convincingly make this stuff in the lab by recreating these

948
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 1: conditions and seeing it actually conduct electricity. So this is

949
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 1: this huge chunk of Jupiter which is hydrogen squeeze so

950
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:16,320
Speaker 1: tight that we think it's basically one enormous conductor.

951
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 2: So when you touch metallic hydrogen, is it hard like

952
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 2: the metals that I am thinking of, or are we

953
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 2: still in a sort of like gassy liquidy kind of phase.

954
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. Not something we understand super well. But

955
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 1: I don't recommend you lick it. If somebody has some

956
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:33,799
Speaker 1: metallic hydrogen, it's hard to imagine what would be like

957
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 1: to touch it because you can't have it around unless

958
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: it's under very, very high pressure. So it's not like

959
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 1: somebody could hand you a chunk of metallic hydrogen that

960
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 1: you could like even consider licking. Okay, it's just going

961
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:46,320
Speaker 1: to be like super duper dense material.

962
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 2: Got it, Okay, I don't want to die for this podcast.

963
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 1: Probably not tasty. I'd recommend a banana for a snack

964
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 1: instead of metallic hydrogen.

965
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 2: Wait, hold on, what is the connection then? Is the

966
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:57,799
Speaker 2: connection that there's a part of Jupiter that's solid like

967
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 2: a banana and the equipment we used to study neutrons

968
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:03,720
Speaker 2: as solid too, Daniel, I just don't know.

969
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 1: Well, Jupiter is active right the same way the Sun is.

970
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:10,319
Speaker 1: It's a big hot thing and so it radiates. There's

971
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 1: no fusion going on inside Jupiter, but you know, the

972
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: pressure and the temperature are very high, and so there

973
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: is a lot of radiation being emitted. If you wanted to,

974
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 1: for example, establish a base on one of the moons

975
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 1: of Jupiter, you really have to worry about the Jupiter

976
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 1: win the Jovian winds, very high energy particles shooting at you.

977
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 1: So just like a banana and just like a neutron,

978
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 1: you have to worry about radiation if you're going to

979
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:34,240
Speaker 1: live near any of these things.

980
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:35,880
Speaker 2: Radiation is the theme.

981
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 1: It's a particle, of course, I'm not trying to be

982
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 1: tricky about it.

983
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 2: Well I got it before the end of the episode almost,

984
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 2: so bravo Kelly.

985
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:48,360
Speaker 1: Congratulations. You get a banana. If I had a grow Michelle,

986
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: I would share it with you.

987
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.

988
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 1: So then we can dig down even deeper into Jupiter,

989
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 1: and eventually you get to stuff that's not hydrogen. So

990
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:58,040
Speaker 1: we think there's a really thick atmosphere. Metallic hydrogen is

991
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 1: up to like maybe eighty percent of the radio is

992
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 1: if you go down to like thirty to fifty percent

993
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 1: of the radius of Jupiter. There is stuff down there

994
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:07,919
Speaker 1: that's solid. It's like made of rock, the same kind

995
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:09,759
Speaker 1: of stuff that the Earth is made out of. And

996
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: it's not small. It's like thirty to fifty percent of

997
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: the radius of Jupiter. It's a really big chunk of

998
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 1: ice and rock. But you know it's buried under an

999
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:22,319
Speaker 1: incredibly thick layer of hydrogen. And so if you're really

1000
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:24,600
Speaker 1: hardcore about you could say, well, that's the surface because

1001
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 1: everything else is a gas. It's hydrogen. But you know

1002
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: it's not in a gas phase. It's in a metallic phase,

1003
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 1: or it's in a super critical fluid phase. And so

1004
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,240
Speaker 1: you could, if you do really deep into Jupiter, stand

1005
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: on a rocky quote unquote surface. But I don't think

1006
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:42,240
Speaker 1: you could still call Jupiter a rocky planet.

1007
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 2: All right, yep, I'm giving it to the astronomers. I

1008
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:46,920
Speaker 2: think gas giant is a reasonable name, and also it

1009
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 2: gives many school kids lots of chuckles, and so I

1010
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 2: think it's great.

1011
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is confusing, right because we call it

1012
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 1: a gas giant because it's mostly made of hydrogen. But

1013
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 1: hydrogen is not always in a gaseous state, and especially

1014
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:02,240
Speaker 1: in Jupiter. Most of the gas on Jupiter is metallic,

1015
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 1: so you could also call it a metallic giant and

1016
00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 1: be like, kind.

1017
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 2: Of correct, that does sound cooler.

1018
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: It does sound more metal, right, that's right, that's right,

1019
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:13,439
Speaker 1: all right. So I think we've concluded that astronomy names

1020
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: are very confusing and maybe there's no way to do

1021
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 1: it right, but it's fun to dig into anyway. And

1022
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 1: so Steve from BC let us know if we answered

1023
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:22,840
Speaker 1: your question about Jupiter.

1024
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:26,719
Speaker 7: Thanks Daniel and Kelly for answering my question. That was

1025
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 7: really insightful to know that Jupiter could be really a

1026
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 7: metal giant. But it makes me think now about how

1027
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 7: we've named Earth. You know, Earth has a lot of

1028
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 7: gas and we depend on that gas. And you know

1029
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 7: how much different is the amount of gas and rock

1030
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 7: ratio than Jupiter. I mean, would it be correct to

1031
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:49,719
Speaker 7: say that Earth is a gas midget? Thanks again for

1032
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 7: answering my question. You're still my favorite podcast. Keep the

1033
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 7: great answers coming, and thank you for being such great

1034
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 7: signs communicators.

1035
00:49:57,520 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for all of the wonderful questions we

1036
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 2: got today, and we hope to hear from you. Send

1037
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 2: us your questions at Questions at Danielankelly dot org. We

1038
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 2: answer every question, and some of the questions even end

1039
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 2: up on the show.

1040
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 1: We do love to hear from you, and we'd love

1041
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: to hear that you are curious that you share our

1042
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 1: passion to understand the universe how it works, from the

1043
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,839
Speaker 1: bananas all the way out to the galaxies. So join

1044
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 1: us on the discord. Write to us at questions at

1045
00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:25,680
Speaker 1: danielan Kelly dot org. Let us know you're out there.

1046
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

1047
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 2: would love to hear from you, We really would.

1048
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:41,799
Speaker 1: We want to know what questions you have about this

1049
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

1050
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 2: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1051
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 2: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

1052
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 2: back to you.

1053
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:53,920
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1054
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:57,160
Speaker 1: at questions at Danielankelly.

1055
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 2: Dot org, or you can find us on social media.

1056
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 2: We have accounts on x, Instagram, Blue Sky and on

1057
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 2: all of those platforms. You can find us at D

1058
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:06,160
Speaker 2: and K Universe.

1059
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:07,799
Speaker 1: Don't be shy, write to us